Carly Rae Jepsen was nearly a victim of her own success. Her breakthrough single "Call Me Maybe" wasn't just big -- it was one of 2012's definitive songs, with a presence so massive that it overshadowed just how good Kiss, the album that housed it, was. After taking time to regroup, Jepsen returns with E-MO-TION, another set of songs that are better than the average Top 40 hit. While nothing here is as instantly striking as "Call Me Maybe," the album gives the impulsive sweetness of her big hit some perspective. If Kiss was the sound of first love and first heartbreak, then E-MO-TION captures how heady the ups and downs of crushes can be the third or fourth time around. For every head-over-heels declaration like "Run Away with Me," there's a song such as "I Really Like You," a smaller-scale outburst where Jepsen acknowledges "this isn't love." This sophistication extends to the music; where Kiss suggested several potential directions, E-MO-TION presents a more unified front. A-list songwriters and producers including Sia, Devonté Hynes, Ariel Rechtshaid, Shellback, and Greg Kurstin help her focus Kiss' effervescence into a cohesive sound that is somehow even more '80s-influenced. The slap bass and crystalline synths on "All That" turn it into a seemingly long-lost slow jam, while Rechtshaid's unabashedly glossy production on "When I Needed You" reflects how big an impact his work with HAIM had on the 2010s pop landscape. Jepsen gets more adventurous on the album's second half, teaming with Sia to bring newfound drama to "Making the Most of the Night" and with Rostam Batmanglij and Tegan and Sara on "Warm Blood," one of E-MO-TION's most contemporary-sounding tracks. Jepsen said she drew inspiration for the album from Cyndi Lauper and Robyn, both of whom excel at sounding exuberant and yearning at the same time. Like those artists, Jepsen is at her finest when she lets her sparkly facades crumble a little with vulnerable lyrics. The excellent "Your Type" is so deftly self-deprecating and catchy that it could actually be a Robyn song, while the title track and "Boy Problems" capture longing and heartache in ways that feel like they were written for everyone's inner junior high schooler. An even stronger album than Kiss, E-MO-TION's equally stylish and earnest songs helped establish Jepsen as one of the most consistently winning pop artists of the 2010s© Heather Phares /TiVo

The lady can rock. There is no question about that, and this album is one of several from her catalog that serve as a testament to that fact. Even the opening single, "If I Could Turn Back Time," has a crunchy texture to it, albeit in a poppy, '80s Starship sort of arrangement. Cher recruited some heavy-hitters for this release, including Steve Lukather (Toto), Desmond Child, and Andrew Gold. Not all of the album is hard-edged rockers -- witness the effective ballad "Just Like Jesse James" -- but all of it has an honesty and gritty edge that separates it from some of the more modern Cher material. When you hear the strength of the vocal performance here, it makes you wonder why the producers choose to tinker with her voice in the late '90s and early 2000s. She certainly doesn't need any help holding a tune. This one seems a bit dated in retrospect, with the sound certainly tied to pop/rock of the late '80s, but the performance and musical integrity, not to mention strong songwriting, really set the album apart as one of Cher's strongest.© Gary Hill /TiVo

The greatest -- indeed, only -- irony of Bryan Ferry's 2007 album-long tribute to the Bard is that Dylanesque never sounds "Dylanesque." There are no solo acoustic guitars, no swirling organs, no thin, wild mercury music, nothing that suggests any of the sounds typically associated with Bob Dylan. No, Dylanesque sounds Ferry-esque: careful, precise, elegant, so casually sophisticated it sometimes borders on the drowsy. There are no new wrinkles, then, apart from a small but crucial one -- unlike his other records, this was recorded quickly, over the course of a week with his touring band in tow. This does give Dylanesque a comparatively loose, off-the-cuff feel, which is a bit of a welcome relief after several decades of cautious, deliberate conceptual albums, and gives the album its understated charm. Since Ferry never radically reinvents the songs -- apart from the sleek, sly propulsion of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and a spare, haunting piano-and-strings version of "Positively Fourth Street" -- this is an album where all the pleasures lay in the subtleties, whether it's how Ferry phrases his delivery, how his road band feels supple yet muscular, how Eno electronically enhances a few tracks or how Robin Trower tears into "All Along the Watchtower." These are the details to savor upon repeated listens, but upon that first spin it's immediately apparent that the Ferry who made Dylanesque is an assured, relaxed vocalist who isn't sweating the specifics, he's simply singing songs with a band that offers sympathetic support. They may not push him, the way that Roxy did in its prime, nor does this have the meticulous ambition of his original work, but again, that's the charm of this album: Ferry has never felt quite so comfortable as he does here, and if that may not be exactly what all listeners are looking for when they listen to his work, this is the quality that will make Dylanesque a small understated gem for certain segments of his die-hard fans.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Whether or not you’re a fan of Steel Panther’s ridiculously over the top glam metal, you have to appreciate their dedication. For a comedy rock band, they manage to tell a joke with a surprisingly straight face, jamming out sleazy hair metal in a way that is equal parts caricature and homage. With the band's pedigree lying with acts like L.A. Guns and Fight, it’s not really a surprise that Balls Out is such a spot-on tribute to the excess of that bygone era, coming from people who were there to see the rise and fall of the genre from the inside. Songs like “It Won’t Suck Itself” and “17 Girls in a Row” show that Steel Panther are still the comedy rock masters of the single entendre, but to be fair, subtlety isn’t what an album like this is all about. This isn’t a carefree, “hang around the house and mow the lawn while you reminisce about the '80s" record, but more of an “all-night bender at a strip club while you reminisce about the '80s" record. As a hair metal album, Balls Out is finely crafted and well produced, evoking the glossy sound of the era, but as a joke, it’s pretty one-note, so either you’re going to get it or it’s going to grate on you. That said, if you’ve been looking for the glam metal equivalent of a theme park ride to be the soundtrack to a guys' night out bird-doggin’ chicks, you’ve found your holy grail.© Gregory Heaney /TiVo

A double-disc live collection, Live...1980-1986 manages to effectively trace the development of Joe Jackson's diverse career. Drawing from four different periods in the songwriter's career -- with each period featuring a new backing band -- Live captures Jackson with his original new wave trio, a 1983 quintet that was dominated by keyboards, a horn-driven group from 1984, and a 1986 quartet that specialized in straight-ahead rock & roll. The resulting album highlights his musical diversity, not his songwriting, which means the record is more intriguing as a historical document than as casual listening© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Although it's not unique, Mark Morrison has a stronger voice than many of his urban soul peers, especially if he is just ranked among his British contemporaries. He doesn't have an ear for strong songs, and his production team is a little bland, but when they hit upon the right formula, like they do on the title track of Return of the Mack, the result is highly entertaining dance-pop.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

With their 1983 debut, the Violent Femmes got the ball rolling for what would become alternative rock, using acoustic instruments to deliver an unexpectedly raw blend of punk angst and catchy-if-neurotic songwriting. The band's subsequent '80s albums were a mixed bag, yielding occasional highlights but not quite gelling into anything as consistently powerful as the first album. Released in 1991, fifth album Why Do Birds Sing? was something of a return to form, if only in terms of having song after song of the kind of weirdly fractured folk pop that represented the band at their most accessible. Upbeat and straightforward album-opener "American Music" is somewhere between campfire song and pop masterpiece, with subtle production details like sleighbells and sparingly used organ runs growing along with the song's steady build. More blatant stabs at pop come with a snarling cover of Culture Club's hit "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," the inverted girl group appropriation of "Look Like That," and the driving college rock of "Used to Be." The band's penchant for sardonic and juvenile humor remains intact on the faux-blues stomp of "Girl Trouble" (vocalist Gordon Gano returning to the refrain "Have mercy on me, I've got girl trouble up the ass!") and the shadowy clunk of "Make More Money," a bitter revenge story of the tormented high school nerd becoming a rich rock star. When Why Do Birds Sing? was first released, the Violent Femmes were already a decade into their career, enjoying cult success but still living mostly in the shadow of their debut. The album would be one of their most commercially successful up until that point, despite some critics finding it disjointed and a little too all-over-the-place stylistically. Removed from the time it originally arrived in, Why Do Birds Sing? feels more solid, with its lesser moments strung together by some of the best songs the band ever penned, and production that makes space for both the Femmes' anxious demeanor and their not-so-secret love of big, dumb pop songs. © Fred Thomas /TiVo

This 20-song European import should be rated a lot higher than this, but there are some good reasons why it's not. It's essentially an updated version of the late-'70s Byrds Play Dylan LP, expanded to 61 minutes to encompass the huge number of outtakes and live tracks that weren't available, or even known to exist, when the original album was assembled. The idea is still a good one, though the execution -- at least in terms of the packaging -- leaves a lot to be desired. The CD uses the latest masterings of each song, as they stood circa the middle of 2001, and so the sound quality is not a problem; indeed, hearing all of the early-, mid-, and late-era Dylan-authored cuts by the Byrds juxtaposed in high resolution reveals the band's development and evolution (as well as several colossal wrong turns, such as the chorus-laden version of "Lay Lady Lay") in sharp detail. The problem lies with the fact that the material is assembled in a strangely haphazard order -- it starts off with the original lineup's recording of "Mr. Tambourine Man," but then jumps between years and different lineups of the group, forward a few years, then back, then to outtakes and live tracks. Coupled with the sketchy notes, the result is an entertaining CD that could have been a lot more than that. Ironically, the notes themselves allude to the special relationship between the Byrds and Bob Dylan without ever taking a closer look at it over time, and the bizarre nature of the programming results in a broad but very shallow and frustrating look at its subject, compelling though that subject remains, even when presented in this manner.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

Mac DeMarco is a hard one to pin down. Before switching to his given name for Rock and Roll Night Club, DeMarco existed as cassette-issuing Makeout Videotape, where his music ping-ponged from digital noise to high-strung underwater pop. Promotional videos he's made for his music have more in common with the damaged frat-boy absurdity of Tim & Eric than the typical sullen art school dropout imagery of some of his Captured Tracks labelmates, or even the androgynous post-glam characterization that flows through this debut. The strange distractions that surround DeMarco are off-putting at best, and could definitely stand as deal breakers to anyone without the patience for nonsense. It isn't even really safe to say one should focus on the music alone, as even just the raw files of Rock and Roll Night Club are infiltrated by goofy fake radio announcements and the occasional detour into Ween-at-their-worst levels of sophomoric idiocy. DeMarco is best approached on a song-to-song basis, forgetting any external influence or even the song that came before it. Track for track, Rock and Roll Night Club is full of highlights. The starry-eyed darkness of "Only You" comes closest to a modern take on indie rock, sounding like a weathered Deerhunter cassette demo from the Microcastle era. Early on DeMarco employs direct clean guitars and muffled drums on the weird denim-fetish anthem "Baby's Wearing Blue Jeans." The next song, "One More Tear to Cry," carries on this Lou Reed if produced by Ariel Pink thread, using the same lonely croon and actually the exact same vocal melody. The next track, "European Vegas," does the same, shifting melodies only a little on the chorus. "She's Really All I Need" breaks the chain somewhat, melding a finally different melody with wobbly guitar lines and beachy percussion. Somehow instead of being an annoyingly repetitive conceptual misfire, the identical melodies work in DeMarco's homespun glam thug sonnets in an if-it-ain't-broke kinda way, lending different shades of the same color to their respective songs. Then moments later, the off-key dork-fest ode to the king of pop "Moving Like Mike" dismantles the cool vibe and resets the feeling of the entire album. Rock and Roll Night Club is a confusing record, but not a mess. On the contrary, it's so deeply calculated that the intentions and possible motivations of its songs are likely to be lost on most. This would be a problem if the good songs weren't so incredible and strange and the weak ones so immediately forgettable. © Fred Thomas /TiVo